Riding in the Wrong Company
by OverMaster
Summary: Like Darkenning's Decadent Habits... but with ponies. Not any explicitly shown material, but still contains allusions and narrations to acts of a very morally questionable nature. Twilight Sparkle learns a few disturbing secrets about her friends and then sets out to learn a few things about herself.


_This Fanfic offers implied content of a sexual, morally reprehensible nature, as well as outright references to events of such a nature having happened in the past. Reader discretion is heavily advised. Don't read this if you're a minor, Lauren Faust, or related to me._

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic _belongs to Hasbro. I am not making any money out of this lunacy._

_Any similarities between the characters in this story and any actual talking horses, chimeras, pet cats, grumpy bunnies or baby alligators, are purely coincidential._

* * *

**RIDING IN THE WRONG COMPANY.**

* * *

**Act One: Rarity.**

* * *

Twilight Sparkle knew Rarity was the oldest of all six bearers for the Elements of Harmony. It was a topic no one, not even Rainbow Dash, ever dared to bring up, since they knew it was a very sensitive subject for Rarity. Still, the fact remained Rarity was, theoretically, old enough for what Twilight had begun to mildly suspect- and yes, dread-_might_ have happened under other, nearly impossible circumstances.

Not that it ever **could** be true in the reality Twilight knew (or should it be the one she knew the best? After all, she hadn't been able to explore those other realms beyond Princess Celestia's mirror that well), not at all, mind. There was no possible way Rarity could ever have done something like that, so what Twilight had found just had to be a mistake in the records. But that made it urgent for Twilight to correct said mistake, _ipso facto_. The perfectionist in her couldn't bear the thought of such a grave, grievous mistake continuing to stain the otherwise perfect files of Ponyville's history, and the friend in her wouldn't tolerate for such a stain on Rarity's good name to remain in record for any longer. Rarity would probably be crushed as soon as she was told about it, which was one of the main reasons that made Twilight so nervous right now, but there was no alternative. If Twilight was to fix the mistake, and by Celestia, she would, then she couldn't possibly leave a vacuum in its place. She had to learn the reasons behind it and, more importantly, to verify, just for completion's sake, what was she going to write there instead.

So there she was, sitting after work hours in the Carousel Boutique, at Rarity's main table, facing the white unicorn who sat across her. And smiling oh so nervously at her, something Rarity had, sure enough, picked up on from the first moment.

"- so that's it, as you can see," Twilight said, being fairly sure that finished explaining everything very neatly. Rarity's bland, quiet stare, however, made it obvious she hadn't understood Twilight's red-faced, tongue-tied, rushed tirade on her motivations for today's visit all that well, if any at all. So the alicorn princess steeled herself, breathed deeply, and summed it up, trying to speak slower and more coherently, "Basically, my new duties include keeping records of all my fellow citizens through the queendom, and preserving and updating the pre-existing ones. So we can understand their situations better in the event of any emergency, no matter if it's personal or public. Of course, Ponyville's denizens are a priority for me, so I made sure to check and memorize your public files and databases, especially yours, I mean, those belonging to all of you, not because I don't respect your personal space or anything, but because, well... you all mean so much to me, and-"

"Thank you, dear," Rarity nodded slowly. "The feeling is definitely mutual. And now I feel like kicking myself, because I should have expected for this to happen. But my mind has been in so many places lately..."

"It happens to all of us," offered Twilight, who had taken both the best and the worst of the last few months, sympathetically.

Rarity closed her eyes. "You came to ask about Sweetie Belle, didn't you?"

After a moment of strange hesitation, strangest of all for herself, Twilight managed a "Mm-hmm."

Rarity kept her eyes closed and spoke anew with an air of resigned finality. "You found the... inconsistencies in her birth register."

Twilight blinked. "Huh... So you knew, after all?"

"I had to. As long as you mean the same thing I'm meaning."

"It, it depends on what do _you_ mean," Twilight said, realizing she was saying something rather redundant and even stupid sounding, but still, it also felt like it had to be said. "If you mean, well, the discrepancies in her certificate, concerning her mother..."

"Yes. Yes, that is what I meant. So you did see it, then," Rarity re-opened her large eyes, which now looked oddly different from their usual feisty exhuberance. Almost opaque. "Keep in mind I'm not blaming you, it's just... I'd have prefered for it to have been otherwise. But you, indeed, saw the hospital records for the day of her birth, and saw my name, not my mother's, listed as that day's admittance."

"A very gross mistake from those supposed to be responsible," Twilight said, nodding. "You were a filly back then! They'd better have the excuse of being too busy or stressed, or else... But, Rarity, I don't understand it. Through all these years... you knew, and you could have filed for a correction... why didn't you do anything to fix it?"

"There was nothing to fix, Darling," she replied, smooth but seriously, looking down. "Like you just said, it was a very gross mistake from those who should have been responsible, but there was nothing the hospital could have done about it, and it'd be unfair blaming them in any way, shape or form."

Twilight's eyes became pinpoints. "... you just lost me," the intellectual genius admitted.

Rarity sighed, placing her fore hooves on Twilight's shoulders. "Twi. Listen, and please listen well, because I swear it on Celestia I'll say this only once. Yes. Sweetie Belle is my daughter."

After several moments of staring into Rarity's eyes, Twilight said, rather dryly, "Rarity, while I understand you have been almost like a real mother for Sweetie Belle, I think that's rather disrespectful of your mother."

"No, no, I mean it," Rarity explained slow and patiently. "I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. I gave birth to Sweetie Belle. I'm her biological mother. Would I lie to you?"

Twilight frowned, then gave a careful tap with a hoof on Rarity's forehead, right under the horn. "Changeling?"

"Don't you think a Changeling would come up with a saner explanation?"

"Point. Then, don't tell me, you accidentally drank from Berry Punch's-"

Rarity spoke again, with far more seriousness than her usual hystrionics when accused of something. "Twilight. I know this is difficult to diggest, but I know you're a strong pony, the strongest pony I've ever met, and the sooner you stop denying this, the sooner we all can go back to pretend it isn't real."

"But that's a paradox, isn't it..." Twilight then sighed, running a hoof down her face. "Okay. Very well. Let's say I believe that. Who is the father?"

"Does it really matter?"

"Why wouldn't it matter?-!" Twilight cried.

"Because there's nothing that can be done about it either way?"

"Is he a bad stallion?"

Rarity loooked aside uncomfortably. "Does doing bad things, just once, makes somepony a bad stallion if they were bad enough?"

"How bad was that bad thing?" Twilight pressed on.

"Actually, I think 'bad' might have been an... insufficent term, but-"

"Rarity," Twilight sternly said. "The sooner you stop stalling this, the sooner we all can go back to pretend it isn't real."

"Or the sooner you can try and fix that can't be fixed, making everything worse."

"Royal prerogative."

"You never used royal prerogatives on us before!"

"You never told me you had a secret daughter before. Now, who is the father, Rarity? Please?"

She exhaled a defeated sigh. "My father."

"I know your father is your father, I'm asking who-"

"My father is Sweetie Belle's father."

"I know he's listed as her father, just like your mother is listed as her mother! But what I need is the truth! Who is-"

"That is the truth. My father is Sweetie Belle's biological father."

"..." Twilight stiffened in place.

"Now you can see why I would 'stall it', can't you?"

"But- how-!" Twilight Sparkle's voice came out as a strangled whistling.

"It's very, very hard to explain," Rarity admitted. "I was young and impressionable, and... we were just coming from a festival, and I suppose you could say everypony was a bit tipsy. It was my first time drinking liquor, and I look a lot like my mother, and... things happened!" she waved a hoof in circles.

_"Things happened!"_ Twilight cried out.

"Yes, they did. I don't think you need the details."

Twilight slammed both fore hooves on the table. "I knew it. No one with that kind of moustache could-"

"Hey, now, don't put the moustache down. It's virile and fits him well, and-"

"Rarity!" Twilight craned her neck ahead so far veins bulged all over it. "How can you talk so casually about it!"

"It's been more than six years since, Twilight. Don't you think I should have made my peace with those demons long ago?"

"But-! Still-!"

Again, a sigh. "After we all sobered down, Mother wasn't happy, of course, but seeing how she was a willing participant then, as well, it wasn't like she could-"

"With your own mother, as well?-!" Twilight took a hoof to her chest.

Rarity smiled a bit coquettishly. "I have mentioned we look very alike, haven't I? How would I miss a chance to ever do somepony as lovable as this?" she tapped on herself with a foot.

Twilight was not amused.

Regaining more seriousness, Rarity continued, "I'm not demanding for you to share or even understand our little values of isolated middle class townsfolk. We all realized we had done wrong, and haven't done it again ever since. But what was done... was done. I wouldn't stop loving my father regardless, and Mother still wouldn't loving me, so what use was there on breaking up over it? The sole wise thing we could do was picking up and continue being a family."

"And that's the actual reason why Sweetie Belle lives with you?"

"Indeed. Very perceptive. I suppose some day I'll have to tell her, but she isn't ready yet. Maybe the day right before she leaves me for college? That way I'll save us one painful separation..."

"Who... Who _does_ know?"

"Well, Princess Celestia knows. She knows _everything_, after all." And Opalescence knows, naturally." She smiled at the fat cat resting in her basket at a corner, who huffed petulantly for a moment. "Oh, and Pinkie knows as well. But other than the hospital staff, my family and now you, that's it."

"Pinkie knows?-!" Twilight echoed.

Rarity shrugged. "Once, she let it slip. She wasn't obvious about it, because she was upholding a promise, but I guessed enough to make a solid deduction she couldn't really deduce or confirm. I imagine somepony from the hospital told her at some point and made her keep the secret, so I'm pretty sure the others don't know at all."

"Dear Heavens," Twilight breathed heavily. "I, I never imagined this..."

"Who could ever have? Don't be harsh on yourself," Rarity told her.

"Are you sure Pinkie-?"

"Pretty sure. It's one of those things where it's evident somepony knows something, even if they won't outright say it. I didn't manage a single 'yes, I know' from her, but I managed enough silent 'I can't deny that' from her through my questioning. Pinkie is no Dashie, but she won't ever outright lie to us either, as long as she can help it at all. And believe me, I gave her no chance to lie in anything. I was all over her..."

Twilight's eyes widened.

"Not THAT way!" Rarity frowned. "Geez, you sleep with your father just once, and people starts thinking you've got loose morals..."

"Okay, I'll pretend I didn't hear that last sentence," Twilight sagely decided.

* * *

"Very well. Um. So," Twilight began, thoughtfully rubbing the area around her mouth with a hoof, "I suppose... this... problem, I mean incident, I mean situation, has been going on, or rather, standing as it happens, for quite a while now, so I guess waiting a few days more as I ponder it, not that I'm entitled over your own private life, but what I mean is, it can wait for a few more days as it is..."

"Yes, I'd think so," Rarity agreed.

"Mmm... Then, I imagine you'd appreciate for this secret to remain a secret, wouldn't you?"

"Greatly so."

"Even between all six of us?"

Rarity sighed. "It's not like I mind you knowing, it's just... well, you know!"

"Are you seriously thinking we'd hate you or something like that?"

"No, of course not! But still, it's shameful in its own way, and you can't blame me for wanting to keep it hidden!"

Twilight repressed a brief urge to tell her it was shameful in EVERY way before saying warily, "But don't you just feel as if you'd gotten a great weight off your chest?"

"Oh, you read my mind!"

"So... wouldn't you like to have that feeling multiplied a few times?"

"Ah ha ha. No," the answer came out easily.

"Oh, come on, Rarity. By now, shouldn't you know friends exist precisely to help you with things like these?"

"But what is there to help me with? We can't undo the past, and even if we could, I wouldn't. I love Sweetie Belle with all my heart, and I'm with her the way I like it. There's nothing to fix here!"

"But Rarity, are you really happy knowing she'll never call you her mother, until-?"

She shook her head with a gentle smile. "'Mother' is only a name, when your daughter already loves you as one. I'm perfectly happy with what I have. And so is Sweetie Belle. Telling her... it only would ruin everything we have now. So I ask you, please, keep it to yourself. And I beg you, mostly, don't ever let Dashie now. She's the second to last pony who should ever learn!"

The alicorn sighed. "Fine. I don't think it'd bring anything to you two that you couldn't solve with a good talk, but..."

"But...?"

"But I'd crush Spike more than anyone else. So fine, I won't do it. I probably should, but I won't."

Rarity blinked. "Spike?"

Twilight frowned slightly. "Yes, Spike. Can't you think of how would this hurt him?"

Rarity looked more troubled now, keeping her gaze low and moving slowly from side to side, back and forth. "True. I hadn't thought of that."

_You often don't think when it comes to him_, Twilight thought somewhat sadly, before getting up. "Well, I'm glad we had this conversation, anyway. It... it will bring us closer, I suppose..."

"You _suppose_?" Rarity blinked in mild alarm.

She tried an apologetic smile. "Oh, what I mean is, it wouldn't hurt our friendship, of course, but it also could... ah... leave it where it already is?"

"Ah."

"Yeah. Well. That's what I meant. It... It wouldn't ever be an obstacle anyway! Same old Rarity, regardless, eh? Eh, he he he."

An elegant eyebrow was arched. _"Old?"_

"Enough to be a mother?" Twilight meekly offered.

Rarity opened her mouth, but no counter came out. She closed it and smiled her bittersweet defeat.

* * *

Twilight left the Boutique after being taken the measurements for three new dresses she didn't really want but her new duties would surely call for. On her way back home, near the Boutique, she saw the Cutie Mark Crusaders playing near the road, or maybe staging a new elaborate plan to find themselves. It was hard to know for sure without asking, but for once Twilight didn't feel like it.

"Good afternoon, Twilight!" the three waved as they tried on some sort of cardboard helmets that barely showed their eyes and muzzles.

"Good afternoon, girls!" Twilight waved back, smiled as she, for a moment, stopped to see them playing out some sort of complex space travel roleplay with more boxes and a few rocks. At some point, Sweetie Belle stumbled and almost fell on her face in the dirt, right before Applebloom and Scootaloo caught her, stopping her fall. After that, Twilight Sparkle reassumed her walk, thinking in silence.

She didn't fully realize she had taken a detour until she ended up right before the Sugar Cube Corner. But when that happened, she couldn't really act or feel surprised. Instead, she stood there to wait until it was closing time, always in the same contemplative silence.

She couldn't reveal it to anyone, and she'd respect that.

But there was no harm on talking it over with someone who already knew, right?

It was quite late when Pinkie finally skipped out, humming loudly to herself, and then screeching to an exaggerated halt when she found herself right before-

"Ah! Twilight! Came for a dessert? We were closing, but I'm sure we still can-!"

Twilight smiled and shook her head. "Thanks, but... no. Pinkie, do you have a hour or so to talk over a few things at your house?"

"- I have no idea what was that inflatable boat doing in that organ!"

"- what?"

"Um, never mind. Of course I'll always have time for you, Twilight! So, it's going to be like a party of two, right?" she giggled, wiggling her eyebrows quickly.

For some reason, that perfectly innocuous joking statement sounded somewhat different now. "Ah... yes, I guess?"

"Are you sure it needs to be just for two, though? We always could invite-!"

"I'm sure that'd be great, some other day, Pinkie, but right now... I'd like for it just to be the two of us, okay? Because, um, sometimes, it's nice to get to talk one on one, you know..."

A pout. "Can't we even keep Gummy around for it?"

And a sigh. "Yeah, of course we can. I just meant-"

Pinkie jumped up, waving a hoof. "Whoooo! PARTY OF THREE!"

Twilight Sparkle sighed to herself.

* * *

**Next:** Pinkie Pie.

* * *

**Omake: Riding in Discord's Company!**

Hello, people with enough time to read the dramatic adventures of pastel colored cartoon horses WITHOUT being no-life losers! ... _suuuuuuuure_ thing. Discord, Lord of Chaos and Mayhem here, out to answer your burning queries at the end of every and each chapter of Riding in the Wrong Company! Say 'Taiga Dojo' and you'll be petrified. Tonight, we'll start with the well intentioned questions from three imaginary readers of ours...

Q: Dear Discord- Is your freakish appearance the result of too much inbreeding in your family?

A: Oh ho ho ho! Far from it, dear reader! There couldn't be any incest in my family, because I'm the result of a polyamorous mating between a deer, a goat, a dragon, a pegasus, your mother, a snake, an eagle, a Fifth Dimension Imp, a lion and a lizard. Do you think all of those could have been related? By the way, Mom just left you out of her testament. That's life.

Our next reader shows more of an interest for Sweetie Belle, but we won't judge him over that...

Q: Is Sweetie Belle slower on the take than average because she's inbred?

A: Slower on the take of what? I'll let you know Sweetie Belle is very fast at taking a lot of things- baseballs to the face, snowballs in the winter, mockery from her wealthy friends, all kinds of bullying and peer pressure. Calling her slow is an insult and outrage! Wait 'til I tell her mom! So nyah!

Finally, our third selected reader chooses a very uncomfortable question...

Q: Are you and Fluttershy an item?

A: No. Fluttershy and Discord toys are always sold separately. I'm enough of a highly collectable and prized item to merit a sale strictly on my own! Those ponies dream for the day they could share a pack with me! Not like anyone like you could buy a me without pawning your house and your mom's car first, so you couldn't allow yourself a Fluttershy as well anyway.

Well, that's a wrap for tonight! See you next chap! Until then, stay crazy!


End file.
